One Way to Live a Pacifist Life: After 80 Years of Activism - WWII CO Ralph DiGia Dies

Ralph DiGia promoting war tax resistance on tax day, April 17, 2007. photo: Ed Hedemann

Ralph DiGia, World War II conscientious objector, lifelong pacifist and social justice activist, and staffer for 52 years at the War Resisters League (WRL), died on February 1. He was 93.

DiGia was "without pretensions, one who wore his radicalism in his life, not on his sleeve," said his long-time WRL colleague David McReynolds.

In addition to his decades at WRL, DiGia's activism took him through countless arrests and a stretch in federal prison, thousands of meetings and hundreds of demonstrations, hunger strikes, a bicycle ride across Europe, relief work in Bosnia, and not a few New York Mets baseball games.

80 Years of Activism

Born in the Bronx to a family of Italian immigrants in 1914, DiGia grew up in Manhattan. A 1927 rally for Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti set him on the path he would follow for 80 years.

At the College of the City of New York, DiGia signed the "Oxford Pledge," refusing to participate in any war. He was drafted in 1942, but Selective Service did not recognize secular conscientious objections. The US attorney's office referred him to pacifist lawyer Julian Cornell at the War Resisters League. Cornell lost the case. DiGia spent the next three years in federal prisons -- and the next 65 years with the War Resisters League.

It was at Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in Connecticut, and later at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, that he met other draft resisters, such as Dave Dellinger, and Bill Sutherland. While in prison, he and other COs engaged in a hunger strike against racial segregation -- compelling the prison system to racially integrate its dining halls.

After his release at war's end, Ralph embarked in earnest on a life of activism, joining a New Jersey commune with Dellinger. In 1951, DiGia, Dellinger, Sutherland, and fellow CO Art Emery bicycled from Paris to Vienna, handing out antiwar leaflets as they went, urging Cold War soldiers everywhere to lay down their arms and refuse to fight.

In 1955 he joined the WRL staff as a bookkeeper. In the early 1960s, he was arrested more than once for not taking shelter during "civil defense" drills. In 1964 he served four weeks in jail in Albany, Georgia (with, among others, Barbara Deming) for participating in a racially integrated parade as part of the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Peace Walk.

Vietnam and After

As the Vietnam War escalated, so did the WRL's, and DiGia's, resistance. He sent out literature, paid bills, and kept records -- and organized demonstrations and counseled draft resisters. In 1971 he was among 13,500 arrested in the May Day antiwar actions in Washington. That same year he and Karin married, becoming stepfather to her children. Their son Danny was born in 1973.

In 1977, when thousands protested nuclear power at Seabrook, NH, he was there. A year later he was arrested on the White House lawn, demanding nuclear disarmament. And he was in Central Park in 1982 when a million people said, "Disarm now!"

Into his 80s, DiGia kept accumulating a record: He was arrested in Washington at WRL's "A Day Without the Pentagon" in 1998 and -- possibly for the last time -- at the mass protests against the acquittal of the New York police officers who shot Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999. He continued his work at the WRL office through his 93rd birthday last December, although he had become a volunteer instead of a paid staffer in 1994. He even lived out his activism in the ball park. An ardent Mets fan, he remained seated -- on principle -- during the national anthem.

In 1996, the Peace Abbey, the multi-faith retreat center in Sherborn, MA, gave Ralph its Courage of Conscience award (previously given to civil rights activist Rosa Parks, poet Maya Angelou and the Dalai Lama), "for his example as a conscientious objector and for over forty years of dedicated service at the War Resisters League." In 2005, WRL gave its 40th annual Peace Award to DiGia and his longtime colleague, photographer Karl Bissinger.

DiGia is survived by Karin DiGia, his wife of 37 years; their children, Howard, David, Brenda, Melissa and Daniel; his granddaughter Kyla; and his brothers, Robert and Mario. Contributions in his memory may be made to the War Resisters League.